The air we breathe

The morning sun cast an eerie glow over St. James Parish, Louisiana, filtering through a haze that never seemed to lift. This was Cancer Alley—a stretch of land along the Mississippi River, home to over 150 petrochemical plants and refineries, where the air carried the weight of invisible poison.

Mary Landry sat on her front porch, fanning herself against the thick humidity. She had lived here all her life, but the landscape had changed. What once were sugarcane fields were now towering smokestacks spewing chemicals into the sky. The smell of sulfur and burnt plastic was as familiar as the creak of her rocking chair.

Her neighbor, Mr. Thomas, had passed away last week. Pancreatic cancer. The third case on their street in two years. Across the river in Reserve, children at Fifth Ward Elementary breathed air laden with chloroprene from the Denka Performance Elastomer plant. The EPA had named it one of the most toxic areas in the country, yet the plant kept running.

"Another funeral, Miss Mary?" her granddaughter, Aisha, asked, stepping onto the porch.

Mary nodded grimly. "Mr. Thomas this time. It's the chemicals, baby."

Aisha was a junior at Xavier University in New Orleans, studying environmental science. She had spent the last year gathering data, tracking illnesses, and organizing petitions. But fighting against giants like Shell, Dow, and Formosa Plastics was a battle waged with whispers against roaring engines.

"They knew," Aisha muttered, pulling out her phone to show her grandmother a report. "Companies like Union Carbide and ExxonMobil, they've known for decades that benzene and formaldehyde are linked to leukemia, that ethylene oxide causes breast cancer. But they keep expanding."

Mary sighed. "They see us as numbers, not people."

That evening, Aisha attended a community meeting in Baton Rouge. Activists, scientists, and residents huddled in a small church, their voices rising in frustration and grief. They spoke of lost loved ones, children born with defects, and the government's reluctance to intervene.